Romain Dillet

Originally from France, Romain attended EMLYON Business School, a leading French business school specialized in entrepreneurship. He covers many things from mobile apps with great design to complex tech achievements. He also speaks at major tech conferences. He likes pop culture more than anything in the world.

He now lives in Paris to help build the tech ecosystem. He likes to cover European startups as well as New York startups as he used to live there.

Latest from Romain Dillet

Streaming radio platform Pandora just released its second-quarter earnings, and it largely beat the street’s expectations. Total revenue increased 58 percent year-over-year to $162 million. The company reported non-GAAP EPS of -$0.04, a $7.8 million net loss.
Analysts expected revenue of $156 million and non-GAAP earnings of $0.02 per share. Pandora managed to beat on revenue but was… Read More

French startup Bunkr is focused on one simple task: killing PowerPoint. To achieve this goal, the company’s well-designed web app will help you collect visual content and organize it into slides. The result is a very visual HTML5 presentation that works on your computer, phone or tablet. You can export your work in PDF or PPT as well.
“We realized that we spent a lot of time… Read More

New York-based enterprise startup Vidaao wants to handle all your company’s video needs for you. Thanks to its network of video producers, clients only need to write down their briefs — Vidaao will then take care of production, planning, strategy and paperwork. Still part of the NYC Seedstart accelerator, it has just closed a $300,000 seed round led by Canrock Ventures.
“From… Read More

The long-running trial of WikiLeaks informer Pfc. Bradley Manning has come to an end. A military judge sentenced Manning to 35 years in prison. On July 30, Manning was found not guilty of ‘aiding the enemy,’ but was still found guilty on 19 lesser counts, including six counts of espionage.
Manning faced up to 90 years in prison. He apologized for his actions in front of the court. Read More

Reports suggest that Apple will introduce a cheaper plastic-bodied iPhone 5C on September 10. The 4-inch phone will supposedly replace the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S in the product lineup. While the company will certainly gain market share in the lower-end spectrum of the smartphone market in the U.S., it’s just a side effect. The new model is the perfect iPhone for the rest of the world. Read More

After a parliamentary inquiry, Germany has clarified its position on Bitcoin. The federal ministry of finance recognized Bitcoins as “units of account” — the cryptocurrency is therefore be considered as “private money”. That’s why, according to Die Welt, the government stated that there wouldn’t be a tax exemption on commercial activities that use… Read More

E-readers, such as the Kindle and the Sony Reader, were a novelty five years ago. But they are already on their way out. Display manufacturer E Ink Holdings reported its quarterly earnings and sales are down 46 percent year over year with a net loss of $33.6 million. It isn’t the first net loss, but it is the biggest one in four years. More importantly, the company announced on its… Read More

It’s been a crazy 36 days since Plug started its Kickstarter campaign. First, Plug is now called Lima due to some trademark issues. But everything else stays the same. The $69 adapter will seamlessly transform your USB drives into a personal Dropbox for all your devices. And now it will support Chromecast. Read More

Card payment processor Stripe is now available in its first European country, the U.K. British businesses can now add card processing to their websites and accept payments in GBP, EUR and USD. After expanding its service to Canada last year, more international locations should come soon.
Stripe isn’t partnering with any local player in the payment processing space and will have to… Read More

Apple shares (NASDAQ:AAPL) are currently up 2.79 percent to $503.25 a share in the wake of Carl Icahn’s lobbying efforts on Twitter. Yet, the stock performance of the past two days shouldn’t diminish the overall performance over the past two months. In less than two months, Apple has indeed gained $100 billion in market capitalization.
On June 27 of this year, shares closed at… Read More

Twenty-two Bitcoin companies received a letter from New York’s top banking regulator to determine whether they respect the current financial regulatory guidelines. More importantly, the authority wants to create a new set of rules to make sure that bitcoins are not used for illegal activities.
“We have also seen instances where the cloak of anonymity provided by virtual currencies… Read More

French later-stage VC firm Time Equity Partners is looking to raise a second fund to fuel its investments. The company needs $130 million (€100 million) before the end of the year, according to Les Échos. The government could invest between $26 million and $40 million (between €20 million and €30 million).
Multiple investors are already committed to financing two-thirds of the new… Read More

Bitcoin is now officially mainstream. According to BTC Geek, Bloomberg terminal users can now look up Bitcoin’s pricing history. Data comes from ubiquitous Bitcoin exchange service Mt. Gox as well as Tradehill.
For now, only Bloomberg employees can access the ticker. But the feature should make its way to regular Bloomberg terminal customers under the label XBT. The ticker probably… Read More

Since Betaworks acquired read later service Instapaper from its creator Marco Arment, the startup studio has been pretty quiet. But the first major update is now right around the corner. The web reader was updated and a beta version is available. According to the blog post, the iOS and Android versions will receive some love as well, and many long standing feature requests will eventually come… Read More

From the team behind SpaceSplitter, Pijon is a subscription service for college care packages. The service touts itself as delivering the perfect packages for students. It’s also an effortless way for parents to stay connected with their kids during the school year.
“About 4 months ago we made the decision to re-envision our future around the mission of keeping college students… Read More

Anti-piracy agency Hadopi just broke a record. In less than three years, it has sent more than 2 million warning emails for copyright infringement. Warning emails are just the first strike in the “three strike” scheme. After that, it sends you registered snail mail, and finally it takes you to court. Yet, only four people were convicted. The most surprising aspect is that the agency… Read More

The Ubuntu Edge, the smartphone made by UK-based Canonical, has received a second price drop in its $32 million crowdfunding campaign. For the remaining 14 days of its audacious Indiegogo campaign, the Edge will now cost $695 instead of its full price of $830. Yet, it still might not be enough to raise $32 million and make the project happen.
Existing backers will get a refund of the price… Read More

From the two co-founders behind YouTube, MixBit is a brand new mobile-first video platform. But contrarily to other video apps focused on recreating a social network, MixBit is all about editing and putting your video clips together to create a medium-length video. Videos range from a few seconds to 68 minutes. Moreover, everyone can reuse someone else’s content and create a brand… Read More

Wikipedia calls Bitcoin a cryptocurrency (a currency that relies on cryptography), but now it’s official. A federal judge in Texas has declared that Bitcoin is a currency and should therefore be regulated just like U.S. dollars or gold. The ruling represents yet another attempt to regulate Bitcoin transactions, threatening the original purpose of the currency.
While it looks like a… Read More

Cloud Cannon is a CMS designed specifically for designers who know how to work with HTML, JavaScript, CSS and any static content. Instead of having to turn your beautiful designs into a dynamic CMS, you just have to put your files into a Dropbox folder — Cloud Cannon will take care of the rest in seconds. Clients can then edit paragraphs in the browser, insert images and more, as if it… Read More